The Man behind the Curtain.
In today’s day and age we often talk about how brands should have personalities, especially if they are going to have a presence in social media. Many websites and blogs take on the identity of their writers and editors, in the last few years as social media and podcasts have become complimentary to blogs and websites. The Huffington Post took on the personality of Ariana Huffington, TWIT is Leo Laporte and Mashable wouldn’t be the same without Pete Cashmore. These our the faces of the brand for a lot of people, but what happens when the brand and personality are no longer connected.
Now I’m asking this because of the recent departure of Joshua Topolsky from Engadget. If you’re not familiar with Engadget it’s a top tech blog that’s been around since 2004. It’s had various editor-in-chief’s during it’s creation but I discovered it under Topolsky’s term and was an avid reader, as well as listener to the Engadget podcast.
Though I don’t know the entire story, I do have to point out that many editors have left in the last few weeks since Arianna Huffington became President over all AOL content, including Topolsky’s Engadget. Is this a coincidence? Who knows? But to get back to my original statement, with Topolsky leaving my intial reaction was I’m not going to Engadget anymore. His podcast and personality was one of the main reasons, why I regularly visited the tech blog. My loyalty was to Topolsky and Paul Miller, another editor who left recently. I followed Engadget and listened to their banter every week online, as I downloaded their podcast and read their articles. I loved these two…but what will I do now? I mean, I’m sure I’ll like the new team, but it will seem a little weird at first.
For that matter what happens, in today’s social media world, what happens when the voice of the company leaves? We say that the person behind the brand doesn’t mean anything, but in today’s day and age when that voice has a bigger impact now than ever before, doesn’t it affect us at least a little bit? If Zuckerberg left Facebook, would we fellow him or the brand? What about Steve Jobs, would you follow a tech product by Jobs that was not Apple related?
Many brands reflect the personalities behind them, but what happens if the personality gets bigger than the brand. If the person behind the curtain leaves, then what happens? For Topolsky and the rest of the Engadget crew only time will tell.
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March 15th, 2011 at 10:43 am
I totally agree. People do not realize, until it is to late, that the person is half of the brand.
March 15th, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Initially, I believe that the personality sells the product. We are creatures of interest, without the personality, any brand would come across as another face in the crowd, given are need to personify the institutions that we come into contact with. For me, it takes just one time for the brand to accomplish something incredible without the personality before I am on board with the brand alone. For example, with Steve Jobs being out of the day to day roll of overseeing Apple products, I was thoroughly impressed with the outcome of the iPad 2. Apple has accomplished marketing the tablet that, in terms of the original iPad’s slow popularity execution, is to be found quite incredible. Of course, we do have to keep all the variables of this in mind… which are far too many for me to type on my phone in time.
March 15th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Steven,
I agree. I’ve been thinking about this concept the last 48 hrs. Like I said seeing Topolsky leave, made me upset, but Engadget or any brand for that matter can rebound from this. If they continue to put out good content, it’ll make us forget about the face behind the curtain and help us put another face behind it.
The same goes with your example of Apple and Steve Jobs, our first reaction is to think, the next product is going to be crap, but if the product is ultimately good we’re going to buy it. The personality matters, but ultimately it’s the product. In the end we are there because of the product not the personality.
March 21st, 2011 at 2:33 pm
The humor, the chemistry, the insight, the sheer fun of the Engadget Podcast with the departing cast will be very hard to match in the future. It is sad when a favorite thing goes away but its also certain that nothing lasts forever and that we haven’t heard the last from these talented guys. I know I’ll be looking for them in their next ventures and certainly would like to express my thanks for the hard work they invested into what was a creative adventure that married professionalism and whimsey in a way that perhaps no one else could. Thanks, Cuz
March 22nd, 2011 at 9:13 pm
I totally agree. If you don’t listen to TWIT, Niley was actually on the newest episode and gave us some insight on what happened behind the scenes.